-So there we are, back to the show, back to the spotlight, back to the glory. And we are doing the same angle that we did in the indies to get Mickey Two over. And all the internet geeks have heard the angle or seen it on vhs or dvd pirate copies that the little creepy bastards pass around rather than actually putting any money in the hands or pockets or wallets of the people who bump or bleed for them or in my case get fucking electrocuted for them because Davey the fucking British cunt thinks that packing me with fifty thousand volts “helps the realism” Bastard.

Hey is electrocuting someone against the law?

-Sure. So is setting someone on fire. We don’t get many convictions on movie directors doing it to their stunt men though.

-You are so fucking helpful.

-No problemo.

-Anyway, we zig in a few places that we zagged in the indies. We also get the whole St-Louis roster involved because there are guys who used to wrestle with me back in the day and they get involved trying to save me or not save me. In fact they do one whole episode where I am strapped to the hand-cart and Davey turns his back on me and a comedy villain called the Ferret runs off with me and then the whole episode features me being swapped from one guy backstage to another as people fight over me until I end up back behind Davey who has never missed me because he’s too busy reading his cricket scores. Which is a crock of shit because every one knows that the only sports that Davey cares about are curling, Australian football and ladies golf. Maybe tennis too, yeah ladies tennis, because he’s fucking bonkers over Venus Williams. Has this whole fantasy life built around her crushing him with her monstrous thighs.

-Do I need to know this? Mongoose is one of my childhood heroes. This is information that I don’t need to know.

-Fuck, I had to sit though it once a day for the better part of a year, you can fucking well listen to it once.

Anyway, ratings start to tick up a bit, we get especially good ratings for the episode where I get wheeled over hell’s half-acre which the internet nerds piss and moan about, because “it’s not about the wrestling!” Dumb wrist jockeys. And then ratings really go up when Katy decides to put her brother back in front of the cameras, playing basically himself, well exaggerated, a dumb self-absorbed prick who runs things back stage and is good at what he does, but has no feelings or emotions for other people. And gradually, her brother starts to have more and more important part of the show as he goes around and fucks with people’s lives. Like they shoot a sequence with me and him where we have this weird surreal exchange about why we have never liked each other, me not liking him because he’s a swarmy little toad who never had the guts to stand up to his father and him not liking me because I had everything it took to be the best wrestler ever and I pissed it all down the drain. And finally I break and I start pleading with him to let me out of the straight-jacket and he looks at me and says, “You know what Eric, I’m tempted to let you out, ‘cause I know that you’ll just dive into the bottom of a bottle and never come back up again, because you’re a self-destructive fuck, and frankly when you do finally end up dead in some shitty motel room, I won’t shed one god damn tear, but no I won’t let you out, because for some reason right here and now, you’re good for ratings, so I’m leaving you all strapped up because when the ratings are up, I make more money and I enjoy more money even more that I would enjoy seeing you dead in your coffin and spitting in your eye, loser.”

Which leaves me raving and screaming about how when I get my hands on him, I am going to break him in half.

And again, Darryl is somehow getting away with strapping me up, because everyone just assumes that we are kayfabing shit up, staying in character. I mean people are praising me for my dedication to my craft. Bastards. Hypocrites. Accomplices.

On the plus side, My back has never felt better, my knee is without pain for the first time in year. I can sleep a night’s sleep without going insane for a cigarette. I’m eating healthy and I’m getting plenty of exercise, even if most of the exercise leaves me feeling fucking sympathetic for a hamster roaming a habitrail.

Around this point we come to the difficult question about how we end the angle, still a ways off but in the indies we never had to worry about an ending. Darryl’s idea is to put me in a cage and have a cage match with Mickey Two with me always trying to escape and Mickey keeps pulling me back in. A nice metaphor for the whole angle.

The reason that Katy really wants to talk about this is because she needs to set up the main event for C and F. Now her idea is to put the belt on Bill Junior as part of him going completely off the edge. That would set up a match with Mickey Two at C and F with Mickey going full-fledged face after he’s finished with me. And after C and F, I can feud with Bill Junior while he sends his kids who are grown up and ready to start wrestling after Mickey Two. Which is also nice because it’s two different generations going after each other.

All we really need is a good reason for Mickey Two to turn face against Bill Junior. So, Darryl suggests that we link it to Montreal. After all, we are pretending that Michael Chakerian is Mickey Von Hess’s son. Wouldn't any son want to avenge his father? René Martin is right there since he’s been Junior’s right hand man for the better part of twenty years, the two men thick as thieves ever since Montreal. Darryl suggests a new scenario for Montreal. Normally, it would make sense for Mickey to beat Bill Junior to get to René Martin, but since we want to end the feud at C and F, we need to reverse the logical order have Mickey Two go through René Martin to get to Bill Junior. Which makes no sense, unless suggests Darryl that it was Bill Junior that masterminded Mickey’s death. Katy loves that idea. Bill Junior is not so thrilled at being labelled a murderer on TV, but he gets convinced. I mean, at the end of the day, he is the bad guy of the piece right?

Chapter Thirty-One: “Can We Do This In Time?”

-Can we do this in time?

-Maybe. There’s something in these files that is reminding me of something.

-What?

-Well, that would be the problem, wouldn’t it? If I could remember what it is that I am reminded of, I would need to be reminded.

-You just love talking in circles don’t ya?

-Well, it takes me back to the beginning, yes.

-OK, Stevens why don’t we review the evidence.

-Well, the victim was stabbed in the shower. The knife was found. It was a seven inch switchblade. From the autopsy it appears that the knife knicked a vein going to the heart. The wound seeped a bit but the knife held the wound shut, but he would have bled to death eventually anyway. The knife held the wound shut for ten to fifteen minutes maybe nine minutes maybe sixteen minutes, that sort of thing. Keep in mind this is Seventy-Seven forensics. But still, good work. The knife was found in a puddle of water and blood so no fingerprints.

All of the investigations have assumed that René Martin committed the murder. He admits to pulling the knife out which hastened Michael Chakerian’s death, but says that that was a reflex thing to do.

-Michael Chakerian?

-Mickey Von Hess’ real name. He was Bruno Von Hess’s maternal nephew, his sister’s boy. The motive has always assumed to be that Martin didn’t want to lose the title on that day. Martin moved to St-Louis in Eighty-One.

-What? Martin is here?

-Yeah, well he came here to work against the Rattler and then once that feud was over, he retired to the back to work as a road agent help with the shows, help wrestlers with their matches that sort of thing and not incidentally to stay close to his boy-friend.

-His boy-friend?

-Yeah. Bill Junior.

-I thought Junior was married and had two boys and a girl.

-Well, he is. He sired the progeny for the Old Man, but the gay community has always known that he was one of us.

-You couldn’t have gotten all of that from the file?

-Well, no. Some of it is from the file. Some of it I knew. Some of it I got from Katy Clancy.

-The thought of you and Katy Clancy ballroom dancing is a very disturbing image, you know.

-Why are so obsessed over this? Katy happens to be a very good dancer. She needed someone to be her partner. She needed someone to talk to who isn’t a member of her family, who are all crazy or dead or a member of her little wrestling world. She happens to look very good on my arm, especially when she wears a tuxedo.

-Please don’t tell me you wear a dress when she wears a tux...

-Captain, please. God, me in a dress. They don’t have enough material. No, I wear a white on black tux, Katy wears a black on white tux. She looks very Marlene Dietrich, I look very Incredible Hulk. It works.

-Well, if Martin is here in St-Louis, maybe we should talk to him.

-Probably, only it occurs to me...

-What?

-I need to watch the end of the C and F. I think I might know what’s going on here.

Steiner is a good main event idea for the current WWF/E. I mean, how many guys have defended a world title in a main event on Nitro or RAW and had the quarter hour rating be below 2. Scott Steiner, the man who will lead RAW into the sub 2 ratings.